A Joyful Noise

Psalm 66.1

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.

Week after week the people called church get together for worship.

God gathers the scattered flock into one place where we share signs of peace with whomever God drags through the door. God proclaims God’s Word to the gathered with scriptures, and prayers, and sermons. The gathered respond to God with shared sacraments. And God sends forth the gathered back into the world shaped and nurtured by the Word.

For the well seasoned weekly worship can feel normal. But to those outside the church, what we do as a church is very strange.

To the world we are a bunch of people who sing unpopular songs, we read from an old and dusty book, we listen to someone offer remarks about the book that may, or may not, interest those listening, and then everyone stands up to eat and drink really small portions or bread and juice.

Worship is strange and yet worship changes things. And sometimes the thing that worship changes is us.

We are changed through a particularly powerful prayer that expresses thoughts/feelings/hopes/dreams/desires that we did not even know we had. We are changed through a handful of sentences in a sermon that proclaim our forgiveness and we actually feel our hearts strangely warmed. We are changed through water and bread and cup as God’s grace is communicated to us physically and tangibly.

And sometimes we are even changed in spite of worship!

For instance, C.S. Lewis came up with the idea for his remarkable book The Screwtape Letter during what he described as “one very boring sermon.” And I myself fell in love with the beauty of the Bible as a child because whenever I grew disinterested in whatever the preacher was talking about on a Sunday morning, I reached for the old book in the pew ahead of me and jumped into the strange new world of scripture.

Worship, week after week, gives us Jesus and we can’t help ourselves from making a joyful noise in return.

On Sunday, we praised God with the song “Great Are You Lord.” I’m not sure whether it was the ukulele, or the arrangement, or the lyrics, or all of them combined, but it knocked me hard in the chest. When those musical moments happen in worship, I know that we are in the presence of God whose Spirit is guiding, shaping, and leading us in the ways that lead to life. It is my hope and prayer that everyone feels compelled to make a joyful noise every single Sunday, but if not I am grateful I got to experience it on Sunday.

And so I conclude with the words from the song, and if you would like to watch/hear it you can do so here: (First Light Worship [the song starts at the 14:41 mark]).

You give life, You are love,

You bring light to the darkness.

You give hope, You restore

Every heart that is broken,

Great are You Lord.

It’s Your breath, in our lungs,

So we pour out our praise,

we pour out our praise.

It’s Your breath, in our lungs,

So we pour out our praise,

To You only.

All the earth will shout Your praise